Art made an impression on UTSA's Romos

Updated 2:26 pm, Friday, October 12, 2012

Raul Caracoza's 2006 "Young Frida (Pink)" is featured in "Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection" at the McNay Art Museum.

Raul Caracoza's 2006 "Young Frida (Pink)" is featured in "Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection" at the McNay Art Museum.

Photo: McNay Art Museum

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UTSA President Ricardo Romo and Harriett Romo, director of the Mexico Center at UTSA, have given more than 200 prints to the McNay Art Museum over the past four years. More than 60 prints by 44 Chicano and contemporary Mexican American artists are featured in "Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection." less

UTSA President Ricardo Romo and Harriett Romo, director of the Mexico Center at UTSA, have given more than 200 prints to the McNay Art Museum over the past four years. More than 60 prints by 44 Chicano and ... more

Photo: Courtesy McNay Art Museum

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"Quince," Sam Coronado's 2008 screenprint, is meant to reflect the struggle and pride of the Mexican people.

"Quince," Sam Coronado's 2008 screenprint, is meant to reflect the struggle and pride of the Mexican people.

“We were first-generation in our families to go to college,” Harriett Romo said.

After marrying in 1967, the couple packed their belongings in a U-Haul and headed to California, where they found teaching jobs and pursued graduate degrees, climbing the academic ladder in Los Angeles and San Diego.

“We were bitten by the art bug in 1969,” says Ricardo Romo, relating a story of his wife becoming enamored with a Francisco Zuñiga drawing at a dinner party at a friend's house.

The malaise is apparently incurable and, if anything, the fever has only increased in intensity.

As president of the University of Texas at San Antonio, Ricardo Romo has built a first-class university art collection strong on works in a wide range of media by local and Texas artists; privately, the couple has amassed a stellar private collection exploring the medium of printmaking, with the focus on Chicano and contemporary Latino artists.

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Many of the works collected by the couple are on display at the McNay Art Museum, which is exhibiting “Estampas de la Raza: Contemporary Prints From the Romo Collection” through Jan. 27. It represents four decades of printmaking in Texas and on the West coast.

“We have prints in the closet, under the bed,” Ricardo says. “We've learned to buy things in bulk.”

And while Chicano painting has received a fair amount of attention from an art history standpoint, printmaking is rich ground for discovery.

“Prints are an accessible medium,” says Harriett, who teaches sociology at UTSA and is director of the UTSA Mexico Center. “That's what enticed us to them in the first place.”

Their first major purchase was a Rufino Tamayo lithograph titled “The Man With a Hat.” Harriett says that at the time when they acquired the print from a Beverly Hills gallery, the couple lived in an unfurnished $90-a-month apartment in West L.A. The art piece represented the equivalent of three months rent.

“We had a sofa, a small table and two chairs, a bed and chest of drawers, apple-crate bookcases, and a Rufino Tamayo,” she says. “We still drive our cars for 10 years. We still save our money to buy art.”

And to give it away. The Romos have been very generous with the city's museums, including the McNay. Gifts from the Romos since 2008 total 200 works, constituting one of the largest donations in the museum's history.

The exhibition also reflects the pioneering print work done at Self Help Graphics and Art and Modern Multiples in L.A., as well as Coronado Studio in Austin.

Organized by the McNay's print curator Lyle Williams, “Estampas” is divided thematically into five areas: Identity, Struggle, Tradition-Culture-Memory, Icons and Other Voices.

From portraits of Frida and Che to images of lowriders, pachucos, soldiers and street scenes to the clever “Mickey Muerto,” the prints reflect the visions of a body of largely university-trained artists straddling a cultural (and in some cases, physical) border.

“This is art with a mission,” Harriett says. “It is meant to teach, to educate.”

During their long careers, both Romos have used art from their collection in the classroom to illustrate a point or reveal cultural stereotypes.

California artist Oscar Magallanes' 2009 work “And the Boss laughs” was originally about gang warfare. It depicts two calaveras in fedoras and baggy, suspendered trousers going mano-a-mano as a silhouetted group including a cop, a fat cat and the Grim Reaper looks on in the background. On a red and blue bandana in the foreground the artist has written: “Fighting for crumbs in a bread factory.”

“It's about black and brown violence,” Magallanes said. “The urban youth in the barrios, they're almost marked for death, fighting for so little in such a rich country.”

“There is a story behind every one of these pieces,” Ricardo Romo says. “If we can, we always like to visit the artist in the studio and get them involved. That's one of the fun things about building an art collection.”